Marilyn, Pursued By A Bear – a new play by Nicole Neely, blending Marilyn’s life story with Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale – is being staged at the Bath House Cultural Center as part of the 21st Festival of Independent Theatres in Dallas, Martha Heinberg reports for TheaterJones.

“Marilyn Monroe wakes up in a mental institution, where she’s been taken by her third husband. The Hollywood icon is back in the hospital because she’s overdosed again.

In Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, a jealous duke casts out his faithful wife and newborn daughter because he thinks she’s an adulteress and the baby is a bastard. At one point, the duke’s man ordered to carry out the cruel errand, is chased by a bear, dropping the baby as he exits. Daughter lives, man devoured offstage. The playwright sees some reflections of the bard’s late romance in the real-life traumas of Norma Jean Baker, the funny, gorgeous daughter and granddaughter of abused and abandoned women.

Here, we see Marilyn (slight, pretty CC Weatherly in platinum wig and blue scrubs) haunted by visions of her dead grandmother (loving, touching Sally Soldo) and her mother Gladys (sharp-featured, defensive Stephany Cambra), trying to battle her way out of a drug fog on an empty stage with blue lighting and three white blocks as props. A chorus of four characters in black, representing everything from accusing orderlies to the dark bear of death (svelte Olivia Cinquepalmi in a clingy satin gown), pursue the anguished actress as she struggles to defend herself against false accusations.

The tone of the play shifts from a sense of pity for the embattled heroine shrinking from a menacing animal growl in the distance to the overly melodramatic … The action swirls and the bear growls, but unlike the Shakespearean romance, there is no magical ending in this evocative, sad remembrance of a woman. We are, however, left with a sense that ‘like mother, like daughter,’ might also mean that these poor women are also forgiving and supporting, despite the husbands, doctors and fathers who left them behind.”

Graffiti artist Keith Haring, who died in 1990, was a protegee of Andy Warhol and friend of Madonna. His work is awash with pop culture references (along with more sombre social themes), so it’s no surprise to find triplicate portraits of Marilyn on display at the Arlington Museum of Art, as part of a retrospective, Keith Haring: Against All Odds.

A new photography exhibit in The People’s Gallery at City Hall in Austin, Texas celebrates women with disabilities, including a portrait shot by Greg Mitchum – which recalls Marilyn’s 1954 ‘ballerina sitting’ with Milton Greene – as Laura Jones reports for the Austin Chronicle.

“‘Sometimes I hear mothers with young children telling their kids not to stare at me,’ says the pretty blond model, as we talk over the phone. I’d watched videos of her online, dancing with the help of her crutches. Seen her Marilyn Monroe-style photographs – white dress, flirty smile – at the People’s Gallery exhibit at City Hall. ‘I always tell people, “It’s okay. Go ahead and stare.” We are human beings, so we are going to notice difference, but we don’t have to make it all of what a person is about.’

This model’s name is Tanya Winters. She’s a 42-year-old woman with cerebral palsy who is, among other things, an accomplished dancer, choreographer, and president of the board of VSA Texas. When she dances, she does so on her crutches, an image many people may not be used to, but a captivating one nonetheless. Photographs of Winters, along with 19 other disabled women, are currently on display at City Hall as part of a People’s Gallery capsule exhibit created by the Bold Beauty Project of Texas. The goal of the project is to show disabled women in a new light.

For Winters’ portrait, she worked with photographer Greg Mitchum to create a blend of four images modeled on one of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic looks. Each image, she says, represents a different side of her personality: a shy side, a strong side, a side that is fun and spontaneous. Two of the photographs feature her crutches, one her wheelchair, because, she says, ‘I use both and both are a part of me.’ Monroe, to her, is an icon. ‘To add my disability to that was very important to me and to disability culture,’ Winters says.”

This Marilyn-themed jigsaw puzzle – inspired by a US postage stamp – is among many weird and wonderful finds spotted by Texas-based photographer Norm Diamond and featured in Everything Must Go: Stories From Estate Sales, a new still-life exhibition at the Cumberland Gallery in Nashville, Tennessee until October 27.

The iconic dress worn by Marilyn when she sang ‘Happy Birthday Mister President’ to John F, Kennedy in 1962 is continuing its US tour at Ripley’s Museum in San Antonio, Texas, where it will be on display until October 28.

Texans aged 18+ with a love of art (and Marilyn) should head into downtown Plano at 6 pm today for ‘A Night With Marilyn Monroe‘, an evening of creativity tutored by Twylla Bell, at Pipe & Palette Home Outfitters and Mixed Media Art Classes. The $35 ticket price includes all materials and a take-home canvas – and if you feel like toasting Marilyn’s birthday in style, feel free to bring food and wine!

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes will be screened in the San Antonio Botanical Gardens tomorrow (March 23), as part of the Starlight Movies in the Garden series. Gates open at 6:30 pm, with the film starting at dusk – and best of all, admission is free.